


Cinnamon to Iron

by myarmiscramping



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir Needs a Hug, Aged-Up Character(s), F/M, Oneshot, Post-Reveal Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir/Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug, i feed off your tears
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-06
Updated: 2021-02-06
Packaged: 2021-03-18 17:21:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,317
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29247213
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/myarmiscramping/pseuds/myarmiscramping
Summary: Naturally, there wasn’t a blink of sleep for the mourning mess that laid on the other side of the bed. It smelt like sugar. It smelt like her. He needed that right now.His eyes were red; his heart was telling him Marinette would come scold him, but his mind told him she wouldn’t. And his gut said to rest.For the first time Adrien would listen to his gut.
Relationships: Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir & Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug, Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir/Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug
Comments: 6
Kudos: 51





	Cinnamon to Iron

**Author's Note:**

> For Rin. Thank you for being my beta reader, and introducing me to the white tea and sage candle.

“Adrien,” Her voice brought him out of his empty mindset.

He could feel her next to him, on the ground, surrounded by rubble and torned up grass, but none of it touching them as if they were oil and the dirt was pepper.

He loved when she combed his hair, her hands were always strong to pull out every annoying tangle, but now it felt weak and as a sign of desperation.

_Somethings wrong._

His gut was nearly always right; that’s why he never listened to it. Chat Noir stayed close, ignoring the tightness his stomach was portraying, and let out a sigh. He loved her aroma. Maybe if he stayed in her grasp everything would be fine. She chuckled at his obvious content. Then she choked.

“Wake up,” Ladybug whispered, so quietly one would swear she didn’t say anything at all; “I want to tell you something.”

_Stay in her arms. Don’t move._

**\------**

_“I’m not surprised you’re a cuddler.”_ _Marinette teased. Adrien was resting his head on her hair watching closely as the lady in his arms knitted a sleeve. Despite the comfortable sitting arrangement Adrien was leaning back on, they had chosen the floor._

_Tikki, the little vixen as Adrien would call her, was smothering herself in his hair. “Why couldn’t have I gotten you?” She had whined earlier. One of her favorite places to rest was Marinette’s untied hair, and it despised her owner. Plagg then scoffed; “You’re just unlucky.”_

_Marinette focused on the green yarn, and smiled, not facing the person behind her who was adjusting the way he sat. His cheek was on her temple, leaning down, becoming impossibly closer. She had so much love to give, and he devoured it._

_“I’m making up for lost time.” Adrien hummed. She laughed, and his heart soared. He loved her laugh._

**\------**

Her chest was rising, and there was a heart still beating. Ladybug had dust on her chin, and her hair was falling out of it’s tie.

There was no more akuma; there was no more blood.

It should have ended there. But Chat Noir looked up, and saw no trace of his parents, like they were never breathing together in the first place.

A grunt pulled his head down. He was on his side, his lady tucked next to him. He was breathing in her scent of cinnamon sugar, and she was barely breathing at all.

“Marinette, what’s going on?” She finally, finally, tilted her head to the head that carried her kwami’s favorite head of hair. “I have to go, _Chaton_.”

“I agree. I wanna go home too.” _We’ll just go back to the apartment. Marinette will get up with me, and we will go home._

Another choke from her, and then a doubt from him. They both knew what she meant.

Adrien would be returning alone.

**\-----**

_“Don’t be bemused, it’s just the news.” Years later Nadia Chamack was promoted, leaving her job an open spot for a reporter to snatch._

_It was Alya’s job from the start: Head news reporter, covering ninety-five percent of Ladybug and Chat Noir’s fights._

_Still, unknowingly of course, her best friends._

_Marinette convinced her friend to apply, almost forcefully. It got tiring when Alya would call, gushing about a battle Marinette had just come from. ‘_ Now I’ll be able to watch you, and listen to your expertise on akumas live.’

_“There seems to be a new akumatized victim standing on the Eiffel Tower,” Marinette stopped knitting, and Adrien shot his head up, almost throwing Tikki off. Plagg came from the kitchen._

_“No sign of Ladybug or Chat Noir. It appears to be a tall male, wearing a purple suit and holding a-oh my god, ladies and gentlemen we have a first hand view of the supervillain himself, Hawk Moth.”_

_This got the couple shooting up from the floor. Ladybug was already transformed, running to a door that connected to a balcony, with a view of the man who was now dressed in red._

_Chat Noir was only a second behind her._

**\------**

“Do you remember the umbrella?”

They were both untransformed, Adrien leaning against the open coffin his mother slept in.

Tikki and Plagg were in their rightful jewels, both turned away for their owners to have the last minutes.

They both had done this numerous times.

Together, and apart.

“Of course. It was my first declaration of love.”

She let out a choke, which at this point Adrien knew was meant to be a laugh. There was a worse part, about the wish, then feeling the air temporarily be sucked in and out by the lady in his arms. Everytime she breathed he wanted it to stop even more. It sounded like it hurt.

She was trying to savor the art of breathing. Marinette didn’t know how many more sighs she would get. But the worst part was her inability to throw up a laugh. Marinette didn’t want her _chaton_ to hear her breathing stop.

She wanted him to hear her laughing.

Beaming with the pride she felt for him, and the love spilling out from them, seeping into the ground and sky where it would stay for eternity.

“I still have it. When you go home look under my side of the bed.” His nose was buried in her hair. Marinette now smelt like iron.

But he wouldn’t cry.

She hated when Adrien would cry.

Though he loved their bickering about tired, red eyes with tones that were meant to be harsh but couldn’t hide the concern and love, and though he wished for one more, his words would only be spoken in soft tones, but short and quick, hoping for enough time to say all of them.

How many _I love you_ ‘s was Adrien supposed to say?

How many was enough for a lifetime?

“I-I know you said something about it yesterday.” Her words were mixing. “So I went looking for it and I found it at my parent’s. I was supposed to surprise you with it.”

Yesterday Adrien found his framed Valentine’s Day love note. He pretended to be hurt that Marinette couldn’t find the first thing he’d given to her, but perhaps he really was sad from the dry sob he let out in Marinette’s hair.

“I’ll get it framed too.”

“Very funny.”

Adrien never told her he loved her for the last time. But Marinette knew, from every word her _chaton_ spoke, they were intertwined.

“Your eyes…” She gasped. The realization on her face startled Adrien; she made it seem like the answer to the world was given to her in the final moments of clinging to her lifeline, her partner, her soulmate. “After all these years, why haven’t I figured out your eyes are just as green?”

“Oh, Bugaboo…”

Adrien would cry later at his own realization, it was the first time Marinette didn’t respond negatively to his favorite nickname.

She didn’t respond at all.

**\--- 12 days later ---**

He didn’t stay long at the reception.

The Dupain-Cheng’s catered Marinette’s favorite desserts. Adrien couldn’t bear to eat anything, though when it was the right time he stayed near the passion fruit macarons.

Tikki and Plagg were underneath the table, listening to conversations about the past Ladybug, though unknowing of what truly happened.

Adrien couldn’t stand it. The miraculouses were right there, and Marinette had yet to be lowered into the ground.

_Away from me._

Maybe if he had enough time, Adrien could bring her back. Bring her back to him, and Tikki, and Plagg. To their apartment which is now so cold, so unhealthy for a man still in his prime. The bed hadn’t been made in a week, the fridge almost empty.

Plagg had been without camembert for 12 days, 14 hours, and 34 minutes. But it was also the amount of time Adrien had been alone since he was fourteen.

_God she was right there._

The casket was closed, but Adrien knew she layed beautifully there. He could picture her in the summer dress she made last year, no shoes, and only enough makeup to cover the blackened veins around her eyes. He hoped her hair wasn’t brushed. He looked forward to seeing it every morning, waking up five minutes before the alarm, smothering Marinette with kisses and cold toes.

_Right there._

He went out through the back door into another room, and sobbed.

**\------**

_Their apartment was small, but perfect. A never fully clean kitchen, a living room that still had boxes from 2 years back, and one bedroom specific for one person. But it was unapologetically them, and now Adrien couldn’t stand it._

_There was flour on the ground from last night’s baking, when Adrien sneezed, a little wind pushing it out of the cup, and onto the floor. He’d kick it under the cabinet before Marinette turned from the stove._

_There was yarn coming from the couch, which led him to the sleeve she was knitting_ hours _earlier._

_Why does it feel like months?_

_Ignoring the empty cup of orange juice, Adrien would later cry into his hands from the lipstick stain at the top, he went into their bedroom, planning on putting the ring and earrings back into their respectul spot._

_Closing the bathroom sink cabinet door, his eyes stung at the memory. Marinette said to put the miraculous box in the bathroom, under the sink. When he’d ask why, she laughed and kissed him on the cheek, “_ I love you, _chaton.”_

_He closed the bathroom door that night._

\------

Adrien wanted to punch, no, kick Alya, as she was talking about Marinette like she was glued to her side.

Did Alya know that Marinette always wore fuzzy socks?

That Marinette would bake passion fruit macarons every Friday to be munched on for the weekend; or how late she worked, and then Adrien would have to carry her to bed; or when she would call him, no matter where he was, and laugh about the press and what was written in the paper.

How Marinette would wrap herself in an old robe when she was sad; how her laugh was the warmest thing in the room, and sounded like fireworks. Those breathless pauses she would have, sounding like shoes against a gym floor, which had the two of them gasping all over again.

Where were the pictures of Marinette with whipped cream in her hair?

Or his favorite, when she was the only one looking at the camera, humor written on her face as the rest of their long time friends were on the ground, trying to find balance from a heavy wave. The next one would have been her face of horror as Adrien dragged her in deeper into the water, and with a third picture of a kiss.

Marinette still had so much left, and Alya was practically spitting in his face about how it was her time. That she had done enough for all of us, and it was time for her to rest.

When Alya finished Adrien stormed out of the sunny greenhouse Marinette would have loved to be married in.

Adrien would later text Alya: _I’m sorry._ She would respond with a heart, though she was either missing something, or tired.

Adrien was drunk.

He thought he really did hit her.

**\------**

_Naturally, there wasn’t a blink of sleep for the mourning mess that laid on the other side of the bed. It smelt like sugar. It smelt like her. He needed that right now. His eyes were red; his heart was telling him Marinette would come scold him, but his mind told him she wouldn’t. And his gut said to rest._

_For the first time Adrien would listen to his gut._

_He slept the whole day, waking up with an intense hunger for takeout. Adrien turned to grab his phone, but only hit the other side of the bed._

Why am I on Marinette’s side?

_Adrien froze._

Oh.

_Adrien went back to bed; his side._

**\---- Seven years later ----**

To this day Adrien would still get questions.

 _Where are your parents?_ He didn’t know. The wish had taken them, and his father decided to take Adrien’s contentment at that time too. His mother was already dead, Gabriel Agreste was greedy, and Marinette was heartache.

The wish had to affect someone.

 _What are you doing now?_ Quitting his father’s made up life, Adrien went off alone. He majored in physics, and came home to Paris, where he taught at _College Francoise Dupont_. He loved it. Learning from his past teacher, and the teachers around him now, and connecting with the students who sat where he once did.

Adrien always placed the two students who were painfully crushing on each other, where he and his lady sat.

It was his own way of bringing Marinette back to school with him.

The earrings were silver as they were placed on him, but covered. Adrien grew out his hair over the years, letting the early grey show. His ring was where another should be sitting, but cared for the empty slot with a gentle touch.

Chat Noir was ‘retired’, but he loved having Tikki and Plagg with him. They loved it too.

“ _Professeur_ Dupain-Cheng!”

Adrien turned his head and looked at his godson who insisted on calling him as a respected, and favorite, teacher. Alya and Nino’s second eldest, and who Adrien planned to pass down the miraculous box to.

After a long awaited conversation years ago, their kids grew up in a world that was once written as fiction.

There truly was magic.

Auntie Mari lived in it.

The sky was the color of her eyes, the sun was her smile, and the wind was her laugh. Marinette’s love helped the flowers grow and the fruit ripen. The rain was her tears when she missed her family, but they stopped when Adrien would cover himself with a tattered umbrella.

She was remarkable.

_She was miraculous._


End file.
